i only started collecting a library, because, would you believe it, my local library was a pauper in rags and tatters; apologies for omitting necessary diacritic marks, the whiskey was ******* on icecubes to a shrivel.*

ernest hemingway, e.m. forster, mary shelley,
aesop, r. l. stevenson, jean-paul sartre,
jack kerouac, sylvia plath, evelyn waugh,
chekhov, cortazar, freud, virginia woolf,
philip k. ****, dostoyevsky, aleksandr solzhenitsyn,
oscar wilde, malcolm x, kafka, nabokov,
bukowski, sacher-masoch, thomas a kempis,
yevgeny zamyatin, alexandre dumas,
will self, j. r. r. tolkien, richard b. bentall,
james joyce, william burroughs, truman capote,
herman hesse, thomas mann, j. d. salinger,
nikos kazantzakis, george orwell,
philip roth, joseph roth, bulgakov, huxley,
marquis de sade, john milton, samuel beckett,
huysmans, michel de montaigne, walter benjamin,
sienkiewicz, rilke, lipton, harold norse,
alfred jarry, miguel de cervantes, von krafft-ebing,
kierkegaard, julian jaynes, bynum porter & shephred,
r. d. laing, c. g. jung, spinoza, hegel, kant, artistotle,
plato, josephus, korner, la rochefoucauld, stendhal,
nietzsche, bertrand russell, irwin edman,
faucault, anwicenna, descartes, voltaire, rousseau,
popper,  heidegger, tatarkiewicz, kolakowski,
seneca, cycero, milan kundera, g. j. warnock,
stefan zweig, the pre-socratics, julian tuwim,
ezra pound, gregory corso, ted hughes,
guiseppe gioacchino belli, dante, peshwari women,
e. e. cummings, ginsberg, will alexander, max jacob,
schwob, william blake, comte de lautreamont,
jack spicer, zbigniew herbert, frank o'hara,
richard brautigan, miroslav holub, al purdy,
tzara, ted berrigan, fady joudah, nikolai leskov,
anna kavan, jean genet, albert camus, gunter grass,
susan hill, katherine dunn, gil scott-heron,
kleist, irvine welsh, clarice lispector, hunter thompson,
machado de assisi, reymont, tolstoy, jim bradbury,
norman davies, shakespeare, balzac, dickens,
jasienica, mary fulbrook, stuart t. miller,
walter la feber, jan wimmer, terry jones & alan ereira,
kenneth clark, edward robinson, heinrich harrer,
gombrowicz, a. krawczuk, andrzej stasiuk, ivan bunin,
joseph heller, goethe, mcmurry, atkins & de paula,
bernard shaw, horace, ovid, virgil, aeschyles,
rumi, omar khayyam, humbert wolfe, e. h. bickersteth,
asnyk, witkacy, mickiewicz, slowacki, lesmian,
lechon, lep szarzynski, victor alexandrov, gogol,
william styron, krasznahorkai, robert graves,
defoe, tim burton, antoine de saint-exupery,
christiane f., salman rushdie, hazlitt, marcus aurelius,
nick hornby, emily bronte, walt whitman,
aryeh kaplan, rolf g. renner, j. p. hodin, tim hilton... etc.

I stand still in this room, to look across at you, and grin.
You don't have to understand what this means...
You make me re-evaluate my values.
I'm not sure what this feeling is without the butterflies...
And the heart-stops... and the blushing cheeks.
I don't know this girl who lets you scrunch her face.
And laughs... and plays... and doesn't plan every single second...
I don't think you understand the significance,
Of my words, of my relaxed disposition...
I don't look at clocks when I am around you.

I don't need your affections every minute...
Co-dependency has become enjoyment of company.
Sleeping alone isn't empty, next to you is simply a perk.
Sleeping with you, not a demand, but a pleasure.
Who is this girl, grinning at you across the room...
Letting you tickle her sides... telling you truths
TRUTHS... I don't think you understand the significance of that word...
Of MY words. There are no walls in my words. (only in my chest)
And "I Love You's" aren't spilling from my lips.
And I don't think we understand the significance of that.

I fall hard, blindly, way too quickly.
But I'm not falling right now. I'm standing here, eyes WIDE open.
I see all of you, and I wait... and patience is not a characteristic of mine.
And I don't think you understand the significance of this...
I feel something is happening here...
A realization; one I had read somewhere in a Jonathan Safran Foer novel.
About falling in love so ordinarily, that you begin to think it isn't love at all...
But something much more ordinary.
And.. this is different... but what it is evades me.
I can't diagnose this as "the real thing," because I only know what the "real" thing is not...

Being away from you isn't painful, it just isn't preferred.
I like that I don't have to hold my breath when we're apart.
But, I feel my facade fall away when I walk through your door.
As if there is no need for pretenses in a room with you...
I'm not that girl, and I don't want you to think I am...
I want to use big words, and giggle at their superfluity.
Let you laugh at my pretentiousness- a misnomer- as I'm not faking anything at all.

I like that I look at you... and I don't know exactly what you're thinking.
And I don't think you understand the significance of that...
Control, let go... and I'm not terrified...
And I don't feel like a half, not quite a whole...
But, I'm learning how to be, and who to be...
And I simply have the pleasure of having you along for the journey.

I'm afraid I don't understand the significance of...
    these words, of the realization that you will read them...
        that you will try to qualify each adjective... and understand each verb...
And dissect me...
    and I will try to explain, a kindness I so rarely attempt...
        and I might not make any sense, and I might not know how you feel...
And... I might just be fine with not knowing.

I might just stand, and grin, and not tell you why.
But, not for not knowing,
But... for not needing to understand.

Yet.

Yes I jumped in those leaves
crunchy, fluffy, autumn leaves
Waded in the decorative fountain
Climbed on the public art

Yes I danced swing in the BART station
Hid in the grocery store among rolls of
toilet paper
Had to *** a ride after the Dicken's faire
Played in the rain
Hugged my mother
Made my dad take me to see Tangled in 3D

Yes I measured the baking soda for those
dinosaur chocolate chip cookies
Loved Steve Irwin will all my childhood admiration
Was afraid of the Deep End
Memorized Shel Silverstein

Remember my sister reading me Harry Potter
Gripping my best friend on Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain
Sang Christmas Carols in October
And I'm not even sorry

I was a pirate paleontologist pop-star
pokemon master steampunk rocker renaissance girl who
time-traveled, hunting T-rex
adventuring with Christopher Robin, Calvin and Hobbes

Made two corsages for my junior prom, fed ducks,
ate at Mels, posed in the dollar store, watched
the Avengers in our glittering dresses for the second

Laughed so hard I cried about the stupidest things
I doubted, got lost in Costco, found my faith
Had my prayers answered
For the bestest, most faithful friends
I have the "simple human relief of knowing you’ve done wrong, and living through it"

And don't take this the wrong way
It's not like I'm going to jump off a bridge
Well, maybe with a bungee cord?

But if I died right now
****! Gone.
I wouldn't say I envied anybody
Not really

We've had a pretty **** great time
haven't we?

Oh sure I'd protest
Places to go, people to see, things to eat, but...

As long as You forgive me
my faults

Whose to say,
There is anything else I HAVE to do
Before I have lived a GREAT life

I have nothing to prove
besides that I am grateful
for this breath of life
which may pass at any moment

one reason why you're not read with a volume you
expected, jedi-know-how, you'll be easily plagiarised.*

when i first came to england i fell in love
with manchester united...
the 4 - 4 - 2 line-up

peter schmeichel (dane goalkeeper),
then ooh aah cantona (eric cantona baseball  cap),
original wembley white towers...
(white towers, charity shield
newcastle united)
so meh for the arch....
irwin... steve bruce... lee sharpe...
gary pallister... (7) eric cantona.... george best....
mcclair, ryan giggs,
cotton tomilisom, then roy keane...
then davies cole ****...
the neville brothers...
scholes and david beckham...
**** stuck to azkazam fudge, it's still perfectly refrigerated
in kazakhstan:

steve mcmanaman will tell you;
it's a random barricade question worth a shot
in the rubric of a sudden challenge.

I remember that Day when we sat
(side by side)
On those Stairs
(Waiting for our Train)
And you bought us Miso Soup
(It tasted like Tears)

The Sun hit my legs
(With all the force of sepia toned Nostalgia)
Covering them, bathing them. glorifying.
The traffic was the push and pull
(To and fro, magnetising, Synchronising)
Of waves.
Harsh, solid, mechanical waves
(Full of the force of Human Atrocity)

Japanese Culture was "in" and everything was "kawaii" and sweet
(With the underlying disturbance of Sexualisation - *** takes pride of place in our Civilisation)

I thought I was eating the sea.
(I could see the tiny fish Nibbling us that time we went snorkelling. We saw a Sting Ray that reminded us of Steve Irwin: Danger; Barbed Wire)

The Snow-flakes
(Fish-flakes)
Swirling in the snow globe of my Polystyrene Cup
(A new kind of Fish Bowl, A new Exposure)
And they swam around and around, Hiding
(Cyclical, controlled by Lunar Activity. Natural?)

If I stared hard enough I would, no, could see myself
(Floating, Filleted)
Amongst those Ribbons of Sea ****.
With each Salty slurp
(That tasted of you, of the bitter Crust that Crowns your body in Heat)
I expected saltier Bladders to Burst in my Mouth
(Drowning me in Poison; Poisson)

I imagined the Japanese fisherman Catching Sun-Warmed Sea
(In a Polystyrene Cup)
The thousands of fish, tiny eyes that Blink, tiny gills that Palpitate - Suffocating in Air
(Aboard his boat, that Famed boat: "Daigo Fukuryu Maru")
Harvesting Silken Strands of Sea **** that Clung to its Crate
(In the same way that his Wife's Freshly washed Hair Twines about her Body. Static, Electric, Alive)

We didn't finish the Miso Soup;
It tasted too much of the Tears that I Cried.

Wi yer eyes stingin n wet wi tears
N muk bungin up tha nose n ears
N a white rimmed ed where thi's ad thi hat
Up tha floats on't lift like a drownded rat

After twelve hours tha's pretty dun in
Whilst t'other folks as been kippin n dreamin
Tha's bin diggin n drillin like summart daft
Now up tha floats on't hydraulic raft

The cold morn air meks tha lungs urt
Cause tha's bin breathin muk n dirt
Fer nigh on forty years or more
That most folks wudn't ave on't floor

N as tha washes all't muk away
Tha knows thas sum that'll allus stay
N whilst outside tha luks nice n clean
Tha's stuff inside thi th't'll never be seen

Until o course tha's gon n died
N them docter fellers tek a look inside
N in amazement they'll stand n stare
At all that muk th't shudn't be there

N wen tha's ded it'll be nowt new
Not too a bloke what's lived like you
Fer now tha's on'y six feet under
Wen undreds is what thas bin used to

N't Crowner'll say thi ad a natural death
Not like them th't had their last breath
At sixteen, seventeen, twenty or more
When sum big explosions brought ceiling t floor

But a doubt if tha'll think it wer thi turn
As tha lays there nattering t worm
Crawlin in n out o yer ears
Not much t show fer sixtyodd years

Still what else cud you ave dun, that's it
But follow yer old man down pit
A mean even his dad was a facer tha knows
Kem out at thirty wi' ands like claws

Ah well it's time fer sum grub
Then half-a-dozen pints't pub
Wi an hour or two o noonday sun
Then back t wife fer an hour o fun
N be six next morning I'll be feelin well
As I teks yon raft t bowels of 'ell
Thirty shillin a week be summer the reckonin
Ah but then they can't see yon worm beckonin


Remember this is a 'Performance Poem'
and the style of writing acts as a
speech prompt. The accent is loosely
Yorkshire. A 'Crowner 'is an old word
for a Coroner.
I hope you enjoy it.

© David Irwin Phillips 2008

Masculinum Hyppeastrum,
monstrum;
the man eating
botanica,
the endlessly flowering plant,
had enough of me.

Went to sleep,
or worse,
he perished.

I must have said something nasty
about his size;
doesn't flower anymore,
all dried out,
doesn't do a thing,
his onion is weeping.

Christmas roses,
as I call the girls,
lost the will
to live.

All my,
previously green, flora
is pointing her leafless finger
at me.

I've done nothing,
that's the problem.
I forgot all about my green plants;

the environment is wrong,
there is too much acidity,
and that's my fault.

I will search
under the garden snow
for snow drops,
I left to themselves
two years
February,
my snow tears.

For colour,
I have lemons and limes,
green and yellow;
sitting on a traditionally,
blue, hand-painted
Chinese china platter.

River Yangtze
is still running through my mind.
Chai,

Lemon tea and lemonade.

~
Author Notes
Flowering plants from Bahia : Hyppeastrum sp.
From the 1970s, many plant novelties from Bahia
came to light with the expeditions carried out
by Howard Irwin and collaborators
of NYBG (USA) and by Raymond Harley
from RBG-Kew (UK). This provoked a renewal
of interest, among botanists, in the flora of Bahia

(3-1-07)

Rubber faces.  Foreheads sweat, stream clown makeup when cheeks meet.  Sweet blood: corn syrup, water, starch.  Lick then smell.  Vampires pick jolly rancher debris from teeth.  Blue fangs.  A skeleton in the closet undresses a nun.  Open door open window sit three cats.  Watch the sun set.  Crows murdered around oak trees.  Darkness.  Lights, music, karaoke, Elvis sings Franki Valli.  Richard Nixon gropes a slutty nurse.  Left hand, right breast.  Alcohol permeates air.  Skin, sweat.  Touch.  Marilyn Monroe hoards candy corn souped with beer broth in her stomach.  Passes out.  Steve Irwin wears a sting ray through his chest, ***** tail through his shirt, surrounded in blood.  First place in the costume contest.  Alter egos.  Fred Flintstone feels snubbed.  So does a saran wrapped girl.  ******* hidden with black fabric circles.  Black balloons.  Orange ones.  Red balloons.  Popped.  Silent girl in white stands in the corner.  Caresses a small bottle of cyanide in her fingers.  Thumb, middle, pointer, pointed at Marilyn.  She knows she will not wake up.  They’ll call it suicide.  Elvis finishes his song in a falsetto,
Oh, what a night.

Carlos Irwin Estevez
AKA Charlie Sheen
Infested almost fifteen hundred people with ***/aids
in the past four years alone
That's 1,500 innocent victims
who now live with something that threatens their existence
And all he has to say is "WINNING"

I remember a few years back watching a talk show on t.v.
and Martin Sheen was on and he was asked the question
"How do you feel about your sons?"
His replied was that he was equally proud of both of them
I wonder today if he is still equally proud

How is "charlie" still able to walk the country legally?
Has no one pressed charges against him?
Has hollywood paid off or killed off the victims?
Questions, questions, questions
Are you really winning charlie?
are you?

THIS IS WHAT AMERICA IS TO ME  (copyright) TXu1-367-253    
BY IRWIN M. DRESNER  (A KOREAN WAR VET.)   IRWINHAM@VERIZON.NET
--------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------
                                       WHAT IS AMERICA TO ME?
        
A  LAND OF LIBERTY, FREEDOM, AND DEMOCRACY,
THAT IS WHAT AMERICA IS TO ME.

  YOU ARE AN AMERICAN,
   I AM AN AMERICAN.
  WE ALL ARE AMERICANS,
  FROM THE HEART AND THE SOUL
  OF US ALL YOUNG AND OLD.  

  SOME OF US ARE TO YOUNG TO FIGHT,
  SOME OF US ARE TOO OLD TO FIGHT,
  BUT WE ALL DO OUR PART,
  FROM THE VERY BOTTOM OF OUR HEART.

OUR FOREFATHER’S FOUGHT TO KEEP US FREE,
AND NOW IT’S UP TO YOU AND ME.

LET’S TEACH OTHER COUNTRY’S ABOUT DEMOCRACY,
SO THEY WOULD NOT HAVE TO LIVE IN TYRANNY.
                                      
LET US ALL WORK FOR A WORLD AT PEACE BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE,
OR WE WILL ALL SUFFER A HORRIBLE FATE.

LET US ALL WORK TO FIND THE SOLUTION,
TO A PLANET THAT’S FULL OF POLLUTION

OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS DESERVES A GOOD EARTH,
  LIKE THEIR ANCESTORS HAD AT BIRTH.

  WOULDN’T IT BE A DELIGHT,
  IF ALL THE WORLD’S CHILDREN UNITE,
  MAKING THIS PLANET ALL RIGHT.

  LET ALL THE WORLD SCIENTIST’S GET TOGETHER,
  SO THEY CAN WIPE OUT MOST ILLNESSES ALTOGETHER.

LET PEOPLE OF ALL RELIGIONS UNITE,
      MAKING THIS TROUBLED WORLD ALL RIGHT

  LET ALL PEOPLE TREAT ONE ANOTHER,
   AS IF THEY WERE SISTER AND BROTHER

   LET COLOR NOT BE CRITERIA FOR FRIENDSHIP,
    BY SHOWING EVERYONE OUR FELLOWSHIP

****** it is the Brisbane bowling trip day 9

Today we went to Australia zoo
We all were given yummy treats to eat there
Some people walked around in groups
And others like me chose walking around the zoo single handed
We saw crocodiles and and tortoises and dingoes
And 1 dingo jumped up when I was taking his photograph
While the other dingo just lied there relaxing in the hot sun
And I saw some wallabies and kangaroos
Walking around us, and I walked around the cute koalas
Got some photos, because my iPhone doesn’t have a flash
And then I walked up amongst a sleeping snake
And a sleeping tiger, really awesome😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
And then I walked around to the zebras and giraffes
They were totally radical dude
Then I walked back to the crocaseum to see the show
Fun animal sounds and one guy lifted his arms out
And caught the bird, once in just one hand
And then it was two hands, awesome 😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃
And then they brought more birds as well as a snake
And Robert Irwin and his brother in law, chandler
Came out to have a play with a crocodile
Which I put on my YouTube channel (Aaron clayton)
Santa in top hat photo, it already shared 10 views AWESOME
It was the most fun I have ever had
Then as I went out of the crocoseum
I bought a rainbow ice cream in a cup
It was scrummy, and I bought a cuddly crocodile
With Steve Irwin’s autograph on it, cool
Then I bought a wildlife warrior cap
As well as a few fridge magnets of koalas and the Irwin’s
Then I walked around to other koala tree
And one of the koalas had a little baby with her
Hooooooooowwwwww. Cccccccuuuuuuutttttttteeeeeee❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
And then I saw a tortoise and an echidna
And many more, after that I bought a rock Lea road chocolate
And we got in the bus to go back to Brisbane
And when we got back to the pacific hotel
We had a shower and went to the 10 th floor
For a pizza night, and some garlic bread
Which was also scrummy
And I took many photos of the view of Brisbane from up there
And I am putting them on my Brian Allan Facebook page
And Brian Allan 6 Instagram page
And after the pizza was eaten up
We went around the table to hear people’s best moments
Of the trip and today
Like it’s the donnellys YouTube page saying
‘What made you happy today’
It was fun listening to everyone saying happy things
About the trip and then after that, I went home
Do my things and off to bed ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️😁😁

What is a happening but conscious cloud
bands the bright earth with softer mysteries.
A perfect balance between waking and dreams
so mastered by the brute blood of the air.
To be the thing being breathed
in burning whatever's inside that won't sleep.
More real than the real horizon,
awake for ever in a sweet unrest.
Higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
that's flowering. You're no good host to this.
For in my arms I hold
the value of being pleasant
in perfect time and measure.
It sorta works this time my love.

(Volkman, Colborne-Veel, Zagajewskiy, Yeats, Lasky,
W.S. Di Piero, Galvin, Keats, Irwin, Malech, Auden,
Uribe, Emerson, Olin)

Lost to the in-mind,
Eyes almost teary with exhaustion as city exhaust expends my already weary body, (... mind... soul!...)
I walked into the washroom at Tilley's travel emporium (you know those hats you see on Steve Irwin? The stereotypically Australian saucers with a tilt like a collision? Tilley hats. They were invented by the creator of this store.)

and it smells like you.

all my weary head can imagine

is your

midnight mouse

of a snore

and
       your

soft

       lava-stone skin

the solar system of freckles on your shoulders

the stars of

birthmarks

on your

      arm.

I say good night

as

    Canada

     tucks the 2 of us in

   for the last time


     until

    April.

The after life part 13


Cronus has had his fair share of junkies recently when someone who killed himself after overdosing on Panadol and Cronus said Jacki burnhead who do you want to be in your next life and Jacki said I want to be a bird and when that bird dies, I want to be another bird untill I get confident enough to be a human again, and Cronus said I could arrange that because taking too much Panadol is bad and it is ****** behaviour and Jacki said I am not a ****** mate I was just somebody who was in a lot of pain and no prescribed medication at the right dose was doing any good, so I went to the shop to buy heaps and heaps of Panadol and Cronus said, did that stop the pain you ahead and Jacki said **** NO, all it did is fucken **** me but I am no ******, right, I just wanted Athena to heal me and Cronus said Athena will only heal if you do the right thing on earth like take the right dose, Athena will call you a ******, Jacki
****** Jacki that is what you are, a total ****** and Jacki said, I AM NOT A ******, just stop calling me a ******, I was in pain, can’t you tell and Cronus said ok, but really you need to learn and I think you are right, you need to be a bird, flying in the air for a while because you don’t really have a real purpose in life like other people, you just expect Athena to heal you with easy ****** like drugs like Panadol and Jacki said I am going to **** you from the after life and Cronus laughed saying, you can’t **** me, out of here because I am a powerful being who will make you a rainbow lorikeet and Jacki said, thank you, I guess and Cronus sent Jacki to Athena for a soul check and after yelling at Athena for 10 minutes, which she lost, then went to Saturn to have a methane smoothie and to watch bon Scott and Freddie Mercury
Perform and then Cronus had Brian simonston from Westminster who was killed by a drug ****** after getting hit by a speeding car and Cronus said
Brian, what do you want to be in your next life and Brian said I want to be a salt water crocodile, because I love salt water, I want to be protected enough so I won’t mean to **** anybody and I want to be looked after by the Irwin family and I want to really destroy that junkies life up here from space, like I want to get inside his head so he doesn’t get away with what he did to me and Cronus said, I can see what I could do, and yes, you could really get into his head, of that ****** ****** and Brian said thanks and then went to Athena for a soul check and went to mercury to torture the junkies of earth in their heads and then Cronus had Kenneth Barbury who was a man doctors called a ****** because he always wanted a stronger medication to heal him, and he doesn’t believe in the powers of Athena because the cosmos to him should be easy, and Cronus said what do you want to be in your next life and Kenneth said, a boy in a happy family who has money for me to be cool and playing sport or theatre and Cronus said, well, even if you reckon athena’s powers are fake I will grant your wish and you will go to a wealthy happy family, but you must learn that Athena can heal you, she has that power and Kenneth said ok, whatever and Cronus sent him to Athena for a soul check which Kenneth was shocked to see Athena was real and then went to Jupiter to watch a football match between cosmos capitals and Cronus kings and Kenneth wants to have the power to write a story of what he knows about the after life with Cronus and Athena and Buddha

If you love something too much it will literally **** you.  Steve Irwin, Amy Winehouse, Houdini, Marie Curie, Romeo and Juliet....all those people in Jurassic Park.

Colours, each a mood

like our very emotions

hidden mysteries

the first time she smiled (at me)
i fell in love..wild..!?

i moved in (with her)
the cool dark ´50´s furniture..

we had six or seven cats (same litter)..
toby,irwin,walter,buster,sue,cindy,lester..

we hid from the gardener..!
watched operation triumpho (on tv)

dusty autumn gave way to winter.
and listened to maurice (on the radio)...

on sunday the choir practised below..
what did the future do..

well it played too some how..
everything being old and new..

the ambulance lounged outside..
along the coast was the cabo des gato..

we went there and rather foolishly
camped in a dry river bed..(flash flood)..

but here to tell the tale..the fire and
peaceful starry nights..(and love)...

and today seventeen years and no
on but still here this very moment..(rose bud)..

still here but another part of town
all water that..all rock..air would..